Media Newsletter

Terror Reporting

2008-08-21T19:39:00.001-07:00

Saturday strike of terror in Ahmedabad and Surat is completing a fortnight this Saturday. There is no clue to the tragedy that left 50 plus persons dead in Ahmedabad and scores injured. Police and media both are full of speculative stories that are doing only one thing. Both are creating terror. Police is picking people on the assumption that such a massive operation must have local support. Like the in the case of investigation of a burglary, police is detaining people suspected of involvement of communal violence in the past and gives the impression of getting some kind of lead. Media reports this event as if persons picked up are the culprit!Yesterday, police released sketch of suspects involved in the blasts. Those who know the basics of crime investigation know very well how reliable or unreliable these sketches can be. Today all newspapers released sketches. Headline of one newspaper can summarise the situation. It says these are the people who destructed your city. It is an established fact that Gujarat police has not caught any terrorist on the basis of sketch.A lot is happening on different fronts. But if we take the simplest thing- the death toll, there is no correct figure about this. Figures range from 50 to 55. Can't we have even this little information correct. If any reporter had tried to find the right figure, he would have got a scoop. Yes. There is a discrepancy in the initial figure of death toll and the number of post mortems. The day government spokesperson Jay Narayan Vyas had given the figure of 51, the death toll according to PMs was only 46. No dead body waiting for PM.This shows our contempt for facts. I would say noun. In the absence of right homework, we depend on adjectives and adverbs and all fancy words. The result is obvious. We create terror in the mind space (this hi sounding word simply means mind!) of the reader or viewer. The result is evident. Both, administration and media is suffering from serious credibility crisis. The solution is simple. Be honest to ourselves.

Terror Reporting

2008-08-21T19:39:00.000-07:00

Off beat track pays off to Gujarat journalist

2008-04-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

Dilip Patel is among senior journalists covering secretariat for the last 13 years. But much of his writing is the reflection of his nose for the off beat. And it has paid him off well.
He wrote some articles about Gandhi. It was much before film Munnabhai revived interest of people in Gandhi and his ideology. This attracted the attention of a NGO promoting Gandhi and Dilip won a 22 day tour to South Africa in 2004.
He saw different places associated with Gandhi in South Africa and also participated in a 300 km long walk through Gandhian places. He and one other journalist were selected from media in this international tour.
Certainly, it is a great achievement from personal and professional point of view. For quite sometime Dilip is planning to write a book about his journey. But as usual pressing assignments are delaying his diary of South Africa. At a personal level, he witnessed the glory of an era that was Gandhi.
His writings about forest and environment and archaeological places attract reader's attention at the first sight. Many of his stories are picked up by the national media. He says political beat is his duty and off beat writing is his passion. During quarter century of his career he has worked with number of
Gujarat newspapers.
Dilip is a person who follows his convictions and conscience, something becoming rare in the journalism. At times, he is sticking to his views to give a feel of obstinate rigidity to others. He minces no words while expressing his dissent. His one liner dissents convey him well with the punch of brevity.
But if you know him, he is quite sensitive. One of his favorite pastimes is to produce Ayurvedic preparations to be distributed to friends. He has tested prescriptions for hair oil, tooth powder and chyawanprash. He himself prepares it and gives it to friends on no profit basis. Labour is free as love labour. He says that his preparations were becoming popular but time was a big constraint!!
This aspect of his personality has an interesting story. He was searching for some kind of preparation to be used as a stress buster. Something every journalist wishes. He tried many and found a hair oil preparation as the best. Since then, he is using it and preparing it for friends.
One day one of his relative wanted a video cassette of a swamiji about Pranayaam. He played the CD in his computer to test whether it is working or not. He was attracted by the Pranayaam techniques. This turned him towards Yoga and Pranayaam.
Recently, when Ahmedabad chapter of the Public Relations Society of India decided to introduce Journalist of the Year Award, Dilip attracted the jury for his convictions and off beat track. He was presented the first PRSI Journalist of the Year Award on Monday.
Dilip Patel is basically from Gujarati journalism. He is presently a senior staff of Ahmedabad Mirror of midloid clan of Times Group.

Cama is the new chairman of India section of CPU

2008-04-25T22:11:00.000-07:00

Hormusji N Cama, Director, Bombay Samachar, and immediate Past President of the Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has taken over as the new Chairman of the Indian Section of the Commonwealth Press Union (CPU) with immediate effect. He succeeds K. N. Shanth Kumar, Director of Deccan Herald Group of Newspapers, Bangalore. The Bombay Samachar is the oldest newspaper in Asia and has had a long relationship with the CPU.
Hormusji Cama is a Director of Press Trust of India (PTI). Press Council of India has recently re-nominated him for a second term as the President. He was the President of Indian Language Newspapers Association (ILNA), for one term.

In the blog powered land

2008-04-25T18:31:00.000-07:00

Last week Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had couple of non government engagements in Delhi. One of them was his felicitation by Gujarati Samaj. Our friend Nilesh Shukla who looks after Gujarat's media relations in Delhi for more than a decade asked Delhi media to cover the function.
However, at the venue it was chaos. No arrangement for media. Oraganisors checked media like sleuths. Confrontation was the natural outcome. Friends pulled all strings. Nilesh was at the airport. However, friends managed entry using BJP headquarters contacts.
Inside, trouble began afresh. Friends and fans of Modi began protesting the position of cameramen. They shouted and yelled. We do not want you, was the cry. Media persons looked around. Modi was very much settled on Dias.
They could not make out whether Modi was looking at them or he had a blank stare. They retreated in protest. But there was none to stop him. Certainly there could be no worse instance of humiliation of invited media.
All knew that there protests would meet the same fate in their own office. No one would take note of what happened with them. But Yashwant Singh who is associated with a blog Bhadas was prompt to put the matter on his blog in his own way within two hours of the incident. He also predicted that the protest issue would not appear anywhere.
The blog is a network of more than 250 media men. Daily, hundreds hits are registered on this blog. I also got to know about the incident from here only.
While surfing the same blog, I came across another post on the same day.
It was a resignation letter of a staffer of IANS Swatantra Mishra. It had outburst against the Executive Editor of the Hindi section of the IANS Arun Anand.
Some may find such an action improper. Here the merit of the case is not a point. But the power of blog is evident. It is a great leveler which has given power to anyone and everyone with connectivity. In a fast moving world this is a way to raise voice against those who are at higher platforms.

Newseum – The Museum Of News

2008-04-17T11:44:00.000-07:00

In plain words it is the museum of News. It reopened in Washington last week. The new avatar of the Newseum is already being called one of the most technologically advanced museums in the world. Front pages of dozens of newspapers are on display out on the street. It is quite a sight, and definitely an attention-getter for pedestrians. Six years ago the original, smaller Newseum across the Potomac River in Arlington was closed.

The Newseum is an appealing example of how a museum can both teach and entertain with clever use of images and interactive displays, and compact explanations that will repay serious reading while offering edutainment to the many school children expected to visit. Whether one is a news junkie, a history hunter or interested in digital interaction, all is available here. And, in no time at all, one's enthusiasm for the media — is contagious. With the museum's seven levels and 14 galleries, there's something always going on.

Additionally, there are 15 theatres, two television studios (ABC This Week with George Stephanopoulos will broadcast every Sunday from one), and a hand's-on master control center open for learning. There are also 48 interactive computer kiosks that allow one to immerse themselves in the news experience, as a reporter, photographer, or even a blogger.

Within the building are thousands of newspapers to read, hundreds of hours of news broadcasts to watch, and hundreds of Pulitzer Prizewinning photos to examine. All told, there are more than 6,000 news artifacts, ranging from a newspaper's first publication in 1545 to the door from the Watergate Hotel room, which led to the eventually downfall of President Nixon.

The Newseum also offers the first permanent exhibit devoted to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. There is also a memorial to more than the 1,700 journalists from around the world who have died on the job since the 1830s.One of the most popular sites, it's easy to predict, will be the Interactive Newsroom, which allows one to become a newspaper reporter or a photographer covering breaking news on a tight deadline. One can even file stories or photos and get feedback.

Another predictably fun site, for an additional $8 dollar fee, allows a visitor to stand before a camera and pretend to be an on-air reporter — teleprompter and all. Grab a microphone and take a stand-up shot in the location of your choice: in front of the White House, the Capitol or the Supreme Court.

Adults can devise their own script, and is allowed two practice runs, with a countdown of 13 seconds before going "on air." Children are given a script to read, and the teleprompter will run more slowly for them, too, than for adults.

Visitors then receive a souvenir photo of their "on air" experience, and can download their TV performances from a Newseum site the following day, which allows them to share the fun with family and friends.

Another site not to miss is the Ethics Table, where players compete by answering questions about the "right" thing to do as a reporter, and completing their team's newspaper page. Using motion-tracking technology, players select questions from avatars that appear on the table. Each correct answer fills in a blank on the team's page.

One of the most popular events being praised by young, aspiring reporters is the Annenberg Theater, which — through the use of special eyeglasses — offers a 4D, 13-minute presentation that is both fun and information. Don't forget to duck and mind your legs in this theatre. And yes, all the movies are free — all 100 of them within the Newseum.

The Newseum has $20 dollar entry fee. Now the question is that will people visit the Newseum with this fee. Competing with the Newseum are the Air and Space Museum, the National History Museum and the National Archives and the National Gallery of Art; it's also close to Ford's Theatre, where President Abraham Lincoln was shot.

One is impressed even before entering the building: Outside is a 74-foot-high, 50 ton Tennessee marble table on the front façade of the Newseum etched with the words of the First Amendment, written 217 years ago: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceable to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It has good quota of blunders made by the media. The Newseum has a copy of the 1948 Chicago Daily Tribune mistakenly announcing “Dewey Beats Truman” — just below the famous photograph of a victorious Truman holding the same paper. Only Mark Twain (who invented his share of journalistic hoaxes) had a plausible excuse: reporting, he said, “was awful slavery for a lazy man.” And there’s at least one sign that the Newseum knows when not to take itself too seriously: scattered tiles in the museum bathrooms are inscribed with journalistic gaffes and embarrassing corrections.

To see the daily struggle with accuracy and understanding, take a look at one of the most intriguing galleries at the Newseum, reproduced in sidewalk displays below. Every day some 80 front pages of newspapers from all over the world and from the 50 states are mounted, along with a touch screen offering scores more. Here the press can be seen for what it is: a noble, necessary and hopeless enterprise.

To see a beautiful slide presentation prepared by the New York Times (one of the contributors to the Newseum) click here

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/04/10/arts/0411-NEWS_index.html

Pulitzer Prizes

2008-04-10T08:48:00.000-07:00

This week Pulitzer Prizes were announced. The Washington Post topped with six of the 14 Awards going to it. Pulitzer Prizes began in 1917 and it is regarded as the highest honour in Journalism.
The prize was established by Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian -American journalist and newspaper publisher. Pulitzer saw himself as a crusader on the side of people and a spokesman for democracy. He supported labor, attacked trusts and monopolies, and revealed political corruption. When journalism was not a respectable way of earning one's living, Pulitzer was committed to raising the standards of the profession.
Pulitzer left money to Columbia University upon his death in 1911. A portion of his bequest was used to found the University's Journalism School in 1912. The first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded on June 4, 1917, and they are now announced each April. Recipients are chosen by an independent board.
This year 'The Washington Post' has topped the list of prestigious Pulitzer journalism award winners this year bagging six out of 14 awards, including one for its coverage of Virginia Tech shooting.
In the Breaking News category, the award went to the staff of the 'Post' for its coverage of the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech.
In the International Reporting category, Post's Mr Steve Fainaru won for his reporting on private security contractors in Iraq who operate outside most of the laws governing American forces.
The New York Times won the award for Explanatory Reporting and shared with Chicago Tribune for Investigative Reporting. Pakistani-born and Bangkok-based photographer Adrees Latif won the Pulitzer for Reuters in the Breaking News Photography with his shout showing a Japanese videographer sprawled on the payment fatally wounded during a street demonstration in Myanmar.
No award was given for Editorial Writing but Mr Michael Ramirez of Investor's Business Daily won Pulitzer for Editorial Cartooning. The award for criticism went to Mr Mark Feeney of the Boston Globe and Mr Preston Gannaway of the Concord Monitor won for Feature Photography.

JOSEPH PULITZER

2008-04-08T21:20:00.000-07:00

Joseph Pulitzer was born in Mako, Hungary on April 10, 1847, the son of a wealthy grain merchant of Magyar-Jewish origin and a German mother who was a devout Roman Catholic. His younger brother, Albert, was trained for the priesthood but never attained it. The elder Pulitzer retired in Budapest and Joseph grew up and was educated there in private schools and by tutors. Restive at the age of seventeen, the gangling 6'2" youth decided to become a soldier and tried in turn to enlist in the Austrian Army, Napoleon's Foreign Legion for duty in Mexico, and the British Army for service in India.

He was rebuffed because of weak eyesight and frail health, which were to plague him for the rest of his life. However, in Hamburg, Germany, he encountered a bounty recruiter for the U.S. Union Army and contracted to enlist as a substitute for a draftee, a procedure permitted under the Civil War draft system. At Boston he jumped ship and, as the legend goes, swam to shore, determined to keep the enlistment bounty for himself rather than leave it to the agent. Pulitzer collected the bounty by enlisting for a year in the Lincoln Cavalry, which suited him since there were many Germans in the unit. He was fluent in German and French but spoke very little English.

Later, he worked his way to St. Louis. While doing odd jobs there, such as muleteer, baggage handler, and waiter, he immersed himself in the city's Mercantile Library, studying English and the law. His great career opportunity came in a unique manner in the library's chess room. Observing the game of two habitues, he astutely critiqued a move and the players, impressed, engaged Pulitzer in conversation. The players were editors of the leading German language daily, Westliche Post, and a job offer followed.

Four years later, in 1872, the young Pulitzer, who had built a reputation as a tireless enterprising journalist, was offered a controlling interest in the paper by the nearly bankrupt owners. At age 25, Pulitzer became a publisher and there followed a series of shrewd business deals from which he emerged in 1878 as the owner of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and a rising figure on the journalistic scene. Earlier in the same year, he and Kate Davis, a socially prominent Washingtonian woman, were married in the Protestant Episcopal Church.

The Hungarian immigrant youth - once a vagrant on the slum streets of St. Louis and taunted as "Joey the Jew" - had been transformed. Now he was an American citizen and as speaker, writer, and editor had mastered English extraordinarily well. Elegantly dressed, wearing a handsome, reddish-brown beard and pince-nez glasses, he mixed easily with the social elite of St. Louis, enjoying dancing at fancy parties and horseback riding in the park. This lifestyle was abandoned abruptly when he came into the ownership of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

James Wyman Barrett, the last city editor of The New York World, records in his biography Joseph Pulitzer and His World how Pulitzer, in taking hold of the Post-Dispatch, "worked at his desk from early morning until midnight or later, interesting himself in every detail of the paper." Appealing to the public to accept that his paper was their champion, Pulitzer splashed investigative articles and editorials assailing government corruption, wealthy tax-dodgers, and gamblers. This populist appeal was effective, circulation mounted, and the paper prospered. Pulitzer would have been pleased to know that in the conduct of the Pulitzer Prize system which he later established, more awards in journalism would go to exposure of corruption than to any other subject.

Pulitzer paid a price for his unsparingly rigorous work at his newspaper. His health was undermined and, with his eyes failing, Pulitzer and his wife set out in 1883 for New York to board a ship on a doctor-ordered European vacation. Stubbornly, instead of boarding the steamer in New York, he met with Jay Gould, the financier, and negotiated the purchase of The New York World, which was in financial straits. Putting aside his serious health concerns, Pulitzer immersed himself in its direction, bringing about what Barrett describes as a "one-man revolution" in the editorial policy, content, and format of The World.

He employed some of the same techniques that had built up the circulation of the Post-Dispatch. He crusaded against public and private corruption, filled the news columns with a spate of sensationalized features, made the first extensive use of illustrations, and staged news stunts. In one of the most successful promotions, The World raised public subscriptions for the building of a pedestal at the entrance to the New York harbor so that the Statue of Liberty, which was stranded in France awaiting shipment, could be emplaced. The formula worked so well that in the next decade the circulation of The World in all its editions climbed to more than 600,000, and it reigned as the largest circulating newspaper in the country.

But unexpectedly Pulitzer himself became a victim of the battle for circulation when Charles Anderson Dana, publisher of The Sun, frustrated by the success of The World launched vicious personal attacks on him as "the Jew who had denied his race and religion." The unrelenting campaign was designed to alienate New York's Jewish community from The World. Pulitzer's health was fractured further during this ordeal and in 1890, at the age of 43, he withdrew from the editorship of The World and never returned to its newsroom. Virtually blind, having in his severe depression succumbed also to an illness that made him excruciatingly sensitive to noise, Pulitzer went abroad frantically seeking cures. He failed to find them, and the next two decades of his life he spent largely in soundproofed "vaults," as he referred to them, aboard his yacht, Liberty, in the "Tower of Silence" at his vacation retreat in Bar Harbor Maine, and at his New York mansion.

During those years, although he traveled very frequently, Pulitzer managed, nevertheless, to maintain the closest editorial and business direction of his newspapers. To ensure secrecy in his communications he relied on a code that filled a book containing some 20,000 names and terms. During the years 1896 to 1898 Pulitzer was drawn into a bitter circulation battle with William Randolph Hearst's Journal in which there were no apparent restraints on sensationalism or fabrication of news. When the Cubans rebelled against Spanish rule, Pulitzer and Hearst sought to outdo each other in whipping up outrage against the Spanish. Both called for war against Spain after the U.S. battleship Maine mysteriously blew up and sank in Havana harbor on February 16, 1898. Congress reacted to the outcry with a war resolution.

After the four-month war, Pulitzer withdrew from what had become known as "yellow journalism." The World became more restrained and served as the influential editorial voice on many issues of the Democratic Party. In the view of historians, Pulitzer's lapse into "yellow journalism" was outweighed by his public service achievements. He waged courageous and often successful crusades against corrupt practices in government and business. He was responsible to a large extent for passage of antitrust legislation and regulation of the insurance industry.

In 1909, The World exposed a fraudulent payment of $40 million by the United States to the French Panama Canal Company. The federal government lashed back at The World by indicting Pulitzer for criminally libeling President Theodore Roosevelt and the banker J.P. Morgan, among others. Pulitzer refused to retreat, and The World persisted in its investigation. When the courts dismissed the indictments, Pulitzer was applauded for a crucial victory on behalf of freedom of the press. In May 1904, writing in The North American Review in support of his proposal for the founding of a school of journalism, Pulitzer summarized his credo: "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery.

A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations." In 1912, one year after Pulitzer's death aboard his yacht, the Columbia School of Journalism was founded, and the first Pulitzer Prizes were awarded in 1917 under the supervision of the advisory board to which he had entrusted his mandate. Pulitzer envisioned an advisory board composed principally of newspaper publishers. Others would include the president of Columbia University and scholars, and "persons of distinction who are not journalists or editors." Today, the 19-member board is composed mainly of leading editors or news executives. Four academics also serve, including the president of Columbia University and the dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

The dean and the administrator of the prizes are nonvoting members. The chair rotates annually to the most senior member. The board is self-perpetuating in the election of members. Voting members may serve three terms of three years. In the selection of the members of the board and of the juries, close attention is given to professional excellence and affiliation, as well as diversity in terms of gender, ethnic background, geographical distribution and size of newspaper.

Pulitzer Prize over decades

2008-04-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

The Pulitzer prizes have been announced. Like every year, it has some interesting stories. Over the years, the Prize has become a brand. Here is the story of the Prize over the decades.

In the latter years of the 19th century, Joseph Pulitzer stood out as the very embodiment of American journalism. Hungarian-born, an intense indomitable figure, Pulitzer was the most skillful of newspaper publishers, a passionate crusader against dishonest government, a fierce, hawk-like competitor who did not shrink from sensationalism in circulation struggles, and a visionary who richly endowed his profession. His innovative New York World and St. Louis Post-Dispatch reshaped newspaper journalism. Pulitzer was the first to call for the training of journalists at the university level in a school of journalism. And certainly, the lasting influence of the Pulitzer Prizes on journalism, literature, music, and drama is to be attributed to his visionary acumen.

In writing his 1904 will, which made provision for the establishment of the Pulitzer Prizes as an incentive to excellence, Pulitzer specified solely four awards in journalism, four in letters and drama, one for education, and four traveling scholarships. In letters, prizes were to go to an American novel, an original American play performed in New York, a book on the history of the United States, an American biography, and a history of public service by the press.

But, sensitive to the dynamic progression of his society Pulitzer made provision for broad changes in the system of awards. He established an overseer advisory board and willed it "power in its discretion to suspend or to change any subject or subjects, substituting, however, others in their places, if in the judgment of the board such suspension, changes, or substitutions shall be conducive to the public good or rendered advisable by public necessities, or by reason of change of time."

He also empowered the board to withhold any award where entries fell below its standards of excellence. The assignment of power to the board was such that it could also overrule the recommendations for awards made by the juries subsequently set up in each of the categories. Since the inception of the prizes in 1917, the board, later renamed the Pulitzer Prize Board, has increased the number of awards to 21 and introduced poetry, music, and photography as subjects, while adhering to the spirit of the founder's will and its intent. The board typically exercised its broad discretion in 1997, the 150th anniversary of Pulitzer's birth, in two fundamental respects. It took a significant step in recognition of the growing importance of work being done by newspapers in online journalism. Beginning with the 1999 competition, the board sanctioned the submission by newspapers of online presentations as supplements to print exhibits in the Public Service category.

The board left open the distinct possibility of further inclusions in the Pulitzer process of online journalism as the electronic medium developed. Thus, with the 2006 competition, the Board allowed online content in all 14 of its journalism categories and said it will continue to monitor the field. The other major change was in music, a category that was added to the plan of Award for prizes in 1943. The prize always had gone to composers of classical music. The definition and entry requirements of the music category beginning with the 1998 competition were broadened to attract a wider range of American music. In an indication of the trend toward bringing mainstream music into the Pulitzer process, the 1997 prize went to Wynton Marsalis's Blood on the Fields which has strong jazz elements, the first such award. In music, the board also took tacit note of the criticism leveled at its predecessors for failure to cite two of the country's foremost jazz composers. It bestowed a Special Citation on George Gershwin marking the 1998 centennial celebration of his birth and Duke Ellington on his 1999 centennial year.

In 2004, the Board further broadened the definition of the prize and the makeup of its music juries, resulting in a greater diversity of entries. In 2006, the Board also awarded a posthumous Special Citation to jazz composer Thelonious Monk. Over the years the Pulitzer board has at times been targeted by critics for awards made or not made. Controversies also have arisen over decisions made by the board counter to the advice of juries. Given the subjective nature of the award process, this was inevitable. The board has not been captive to popular inclinations. Many, if not most, of the honored books have not been on bestseller lists, and many of the winning plays have been staged off-Broadway or in regional theaters.

In journalism the major newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, have harvested many of the awards, but the board also has often reached out to work done by small, little-known papers. The Public Service award in 1995 went to The Virgin Islands Daily News , St. Thomas, for its disclosure of the links between the region's rampant crime rate and corruption in the local criminal justice system. In 2005, the investigative reporting award went to Willamette Week , an alternative newspaper in Portland, Oregon, for its exposure of a former governor's long concealed sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl. In letters, the board has grown less conservative over the years in matters of taste. In 1963 the drama jury nominated Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but the board found the script insufficiently "uplifting," a complaint that related to arguments over sexual permissiveness and rough dialogue.

In 1993 the prize went to Tony Kushner's "Angels in America: Millennium Approaches," a play that dealt with problems of homosexuality and AIDS and whose script was replete with obscenities. On the same debated issue of taste, the board in 1941 denied the fiction prize to Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, but gave him the award in 1953 for The Old Man and the Sea, a lesser work. Notwithstanding these contretemps, from its earliest days, the board has in general stood firmly by a policy of secrecy in its deliberations and refusal to publicly debate or defend its decisions. The challenges have not lessened the reputation of the Pulitzer Prizes as the country's most prestigious awards and as the most sought-after accolades in journalism, letters, and music.

The Prizes are perceived as a major incentive for high-quality journalism and have focused worldwide attention on American achievements in letters and music. The formal announcement of the prizes, made each April, states that the awards are made by the president of Columbia University on the recommendation of the Pulitzer Prize board. This formulation is derived from the Pulitzer will, which established Columbia as the seat of the administration of the prizes. Today, in fact, the independent board makes all the decisions relative to the prizes. In his will Pulitzer bestowed an endowment on Columbia of $2,000,000 for the establishment of a School of Journalism , one-fourth of which was to be "applied to prizes or scholarships for the encouragement of public, service, public morals, American literature, and the advancement of education."

In doing so, he stated: "I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people. I desire to assist in attracting to this profession young men of character and ability, also to help those already engaged in the profession to acquire the highest moral and intellectual training." In his ascent to the summit of American journalism, Pulitzer himself received little or no assistance. He prided himself on being a self-made man, but it may have been his struggles as a young journalist that imbued him with the desire to foster professional training.

Flat Earth News -naked truth of media

2008-04-08T20:38:00.000-07:00

Flat Earth News is a book by Nick Davies, Special Correspondent of The Guardian. Nick Davies has been named Journalist of the Year, Reporter of the Year and Feature Writer of the Year for his investigations into crime, drugs, poverty and other social issues. Hundreds of journalists have attended his masterclass on the techniques of investigative reporting. He has been a journalist since 1976 and is currently a freelance, working regularly as special correspondent for The Guardian.
The title itself gives the idea of the book. No one believes that earth is flat. And no one believes that news is the truth. His book gives plenty of examples to establish that the news is a plant. It is the interplay of various forces from intelligence agencies to PR agencies and media plays into the hands of these and other market forces. This is true of media everywhere. Here is an extract from the book which has sparked off a debate in Britain.

The Bug That Ate the World

December 31 1999. Millennium Eve. Most of the adults in the western world are out in search of alcohol and hectic self-indulgence, and almost certainly most of the journalists are out there with them, but a few have stayed back in their newsrooms. Along with the police and the doctors and the fire brigade, the journalists have a job which is too important to drop just because everybody else is out at a party. And this holds some consolation, because millennium eve looks like being a good night to be a journalist on a late shift. This is the night when a very big story is going to break, all around the world.
All it needs is for the sun to move across the planet, hauling the darkness behind it, for midnight to strike, and, hour by hour, country by country, computers will die. And with them may die the world's electricity grids, its telecommunications, its water supplies, its defence networks: the entire corpus of veins which carries the lifeblood of an electronic society faces sudden death from the technological equivalent of a cardiac arrest. The journalists know it is going to happen, because they themselves have written the stories which have predicted it. The millennium bug is finally coming.
This is a story with the finest of journalistic pedigrees. It has been running for years at great length, not only in the tabloids but also in the most prestigious newspapers and magazines which are published in the world's most sophisticated communications systems. In Britain, they have explained: "Life-saving hospital equipment and 999 services in London face total breakdown on January 1 2000." (London Evening Standard)... "National Health Service patients could die because insufficient time and thought have been devoted to the millennium bug." (Daily Telegraph).... "Banks could collapse if they fail to eradicate the millennium bug from their computer systems." (Guardian)...... "Riots, terrorism and a health crisis could follow a millennium bug meltdown" (Sunday Mirror)... "All trace of pension contributions could be wiped out in businesses failing to cope with the millennium bug." (Independent). The threat is not merely that systems will fail and cause chaos in the organisations which rely on them, but that some of those systems will carry on working and choose their own terrifying new course. "The millennium bug could cause prison security doors and cell doors operated by computer to open," according to the Independent on Sunday, while the Times has told its readers of a "Nato alert over Russian missile millennium bug" and reported "alliance fears of an attack from the East by rogue nuclear weapons systems".
In the United States, in the same way, the best newspapers in the land have joined the coverage: "The millennium bug looms." (New York Times)... "Year 2000 - a ticket to disaster." (San Francisco Chronicle)... "The computer time bomb." (Seattle Times)... "A date with disaster." (Washington Post)... "Countdown to 'Y2K meltdown'." (Chicago Daily Herald)... "The day the world crashes." (Newsweek). Stories have gone beyond merely describing the threat. Some American journalists have pointed accusatory fingers at the rest of the world, with a sequence of stories such as one in the Chicago Tribune in March 1999, headlined "Many nations are unwilling or unable to fix possible computer woes, leaving the US in peril." The LA Times, in August 1999, revealed that the solution to the threat was itself under threat: "Some fear sabotage by Y2K consultants; foreign contractors in particular may be infecting programs as they fix 2000 bugs, US security experts warn."
As it turned out, we know very little of what really happened on that long-awaited night. That is, in part, of course, because very little did happen.
In Britain, a tide gauge in Portsmouth harbour failed. A desk-top computer in a weather station in Aberdeen froze. The government minister responsible for dealing with the bug volunteered that these incidents were 'too trivial to mention'. There was also a businessman in Swansea who reported that his computer had more or less blown up on millennium eve, but then discovered that he was suffering from a mouse with loose bowels which had made a mess of his circuit board.
Later that night, in the United States, where the finest newspapers had joined the lowliest television networks and supermarket magazines in relaying the scale of the Y2K threat, John Koskinen, the chairman of President Clinton's Council on Year 2000 Conversion, declared: "At this point we are not aware of anything that is broken as a result of Y2K." Bruce McConnell, director of the International Year 2000 Co-operation Center, agreed: "From an infrastructure standpoint, we expect a continuation of the non-event."
Across the world, it was the same non-story. No planes fell out of the sky. No power stations melted down. And the great non-event struck not only those countries which had spent years defending themselves against the bug, but also those which had done little or nothing to prepare for it. There was no story in China and India where, the world's press had warned, governments had been so lax that the bug would disable their power grids and their communication systems with the possibility of riots as the social infrastructure collapsed. There was nothing, too, from Russia and Belarus and Moldova and Ukraine, countries where the threat had been so recklessly ignored that, as millennium eve approached, the US State Department had issued formal travel advisories to alert American citizens to the risk to their health and safety if they were to go there.
There is a second reason why we know so little about what really happened that night: most of those journalists who worked late in search of the promised catastrophe, wrote nothing at all about the great non-story. No Millennium Bug? No global crash? No crash even in those countries which had failed to protect themselves? No truth at all in hundreds of thousands of news reports and background features and confident comment which had run through just about every newspaper and broadcasting outlet in every country on the planet, stories which had been running for years and which were still running only 24 hours before the great night finally arrived? No truth in the mass media? Well, there's no story there. So it never got written.
Encouraged by these stories, some governments had spent fortunes in public money (and secured no better result than those who spent next to nothing). Journalists reported that the British government had spent £396 million on Y2K protection. They also reported that it had spent £430 million. And that it had spent £788 million. The American government had spent far more, they said - $100 billion, or $200 billion, or $320 billion, or $600 billion, or $858 billion, depending on which journalist you were reading. Anyway, it was a lot. Beyond that, the private sector had spawned a mini-industry of companies selling millennium bug kits, while publishers turned out bug books and bug videos, and estate agents sold bug-resistant homes, and a few families sold their houses and fled to remote cabins in order to give themselves a chance to survive the coming bug-related chaos. But this was not a story.
The sun rose on January 1 2000 like the lights coming on at an orgy. Everybody who had been so busy - the journalists, the governments, the bug-related businesses and the computer experts - all picked themselves up, hoped nobody was looking and quietly tip-toed away.
You could argue that every profession has its defining value. For carpenters, it might be accuracy: a carpenter who isn't accurate shouldn't be a carpenter. For diplomats, it might be loyalty: they can lie and spy and cheat and pull all sorts of dirty tricks, and as long as they are loyal to their government, they are doing their job. For journalists, the defining value is honesty - the attempt to tell the truth. That is our primary purpose. All that we do - and all that is said about us - must flow from the single source of truth-telling.
So, millennium eve turned out to be a terrifying night for journalists. It was in itself a stunning example of a failure in truth-telling by the global media. Whatever the truth was about the possible threat to computers that night, the world's journalists clearly had gone a long way beyond it. It was symbolic too: the new millennium arriving in darkness; the truth lost; and the truth about the losing of that truth then lost as well. The millennium bug is only one example of a systemic weakness which quietly has overwhelmed the communications media, leaving governments all over the planet and their billions of citizens embarking on a new era in which they continue to pour time and energy and money into frantic activity which frequently proves to be built out of untruth.
This is Flat Earth news. A story appears to be true. It is widely accepted as true. It becomes a heresy to suggest that it is not true - even if it is riddled with falsehood, distortion and propaganda.

Brand building Mudra Ishtyle

2008-04-04T05:02:00.000-07:00

This week there were several stories on internet and in print about Mudra getting advertising account of Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited. Such a publicity blitz is rare. One thing was clear from the stories that the focus was Mudra getting business. How these articles helped TCGL is a mystery. From the articles it appeared that TCGL business was so great that by getting the account Mudra proved its greatness.
People in the advertising world were quite surprised when these articles gave names of other competing advertising agencies to prove the worth of Mudra. Probably Mudra needs such a filip when it is confronted with the growing problem of sagging business! And it used its client TCGL to rebuild its own image. Poor Tourism Minister Jai Narayan Vyas and his team of Atanu Chakravarti and PD Vaghela must be wondering who is doing whose publicity.
If Mudra had done this PR work in the newspapers and on the internet, it would have certainly been a good case of its PR skills. But, it retained Hammer and Partner to do this job! Chief Minister Narendra Modi's global mask Jai Narayan Vyas, a man with great oratory skills , could have done better by retaining Hammer and Partner with much lower package! Even otherwise quite media savvy Vyas himself would have done a better job. Those who have seen him organising a high fee seminar of Journalists and his CD about powerful communication would vouch for Vyas's media skills.
Chandan Nath of Mudra must be expecting a windfall by selling Mudra through TCGL!!!!

Jargon, Journalese And Slang

2008-04-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

Friends Jargon, Journalese and slang are the words we should avoid. Many international publications have their style guide which tells journalists about publication's stand about different aspects of language to be used. Here is style guide of Economist about these three very important aspects of language which reporters and writers generally tend to ignore.

Jargon

Avoid it. You may have to think harder if you are not to use jargon, but you can still be precise. Technical terms should be used in their proper context; do not use them out of it. In many instances simple words can do the job of exponential (try fast), interface (frontier or border) and so on. If you find yourself tempted to write about affirmative action or corporate governance, you will have to explain what it is; with luck, you will then not have to use the actual expression.

Avoid, above all, the kind of jargon that tries either to dignify nonsense with seriousness (The appointee...should have a proven track record of operating at a senior level within a multi-site international business, preferably within a service- or brand-oriented environment, declared an advertisement for a financial controller for The Economist Group) or to obscure the truth (We shall not launch the ground offensive until we have attrited the Republican Guard to the point when they no longer have an effective offensive capacity—the Pentagon's way of saying that the allies would not fight on the ground until they had killed so many Iraqis that the others would not attack). What was meant by the Israeli defence ministry when it issued the following press release remains unclear: The United States and Israel now possess the capability to conduct real-time simulations with man in the loop for full-scale theatre missile defence architectures for the Middle East.

Try not to use foreign words and phrases unless there is no English alternative, which is unusual (so a year or per year, not per annum; a person or per person, not per capita; beyond one's authority, not ultra vires; and so on).

Journalese and slang

Do not be too free with slang (eg, He really hit the big time in 1994). Slang, like metaphors, should be used only occasionally if it is to have effect. Avoid expressions used only by journalists, such as giving people the thumbs up, the thumbs down or the green light. Stay clear of gravy trains and salami tactics. Do not use the likes of. And avoid words and expressions that are ugly or overused, such as the bottom line, high profile, caring (as an adjective), carers, guesstimate (use guess), schizophrenic (unless the context is medical), crisis, key, major (unless something else nearby is minor), massive (as in massive inflation), meaningful, perceptions, prestigious and significant.

Politicians are often said to be highly visible, when conspicuous would be more appropriate. Regulations are sometimes said to be designed to create transparency, which presumably means openness. Governance usually means government. Elections described as too close to call are usually just close.

Try not to be predictable, especially predictably jocular. Spare your readers any mention of mandarins when writing about the civil service, of their lordships when discussing the House of Lords, and of comrades when analysing communist parties. Must all lawns be manicured? Are drug traffickers inevitably barons?

In general, try to make your writing fresh. It will seem stale if it reads like hackneyed journalese. One weakness of journalists, who on daily newspapers may plead that they have little time to search for the apposite word, is a love of the ready-made, seventh-hand phrase. Lazy journalists are always at home in oil-rich country A, ruled by ailing President B, the long-serving strongman, who is, according to the chattering classes, a wily political operator—hence the present uneasy peace—but, after his recent watershed (or landmark or sea-change) decision to arrest his prime minister (the honeymoon is over), will soon face a bloody uprising in the breakaway south. Similarly, lazy business journalists always enjoy describing the problems of troubled company C, a victim of the revolution in the gimbal-pin industry (change is always revolutionary in such industries), which, well-placed insiders predict, will be riven by a make-or-break strike unless one of the major players makes an 11th-hour (or last-ditch) intervention in a marathon negotiating session.

Prose such as this is freighted with codewords (respected is applied to someone the writer approves of, militant someone he disapproves of, prestigious something you won't have heard of). The story can usually start with the words, First the good news, inevitably to be followed in due course by Now the bad news. A quote will then be inserted, attributed to one (never an) industry analyst, and often the words If, and it's a big if... Towards the end, after an admission that the author has no idea what is going on, there is always room for One thing is certain, before rounding off the article with As one wag put it...

Perhaps even more wearying for the reader is the trendy journalist's fondness of vogue words and expressions. Some of these are deliberately chosen (bridges too far; empires striking back; kinder, gentler; F-words; flavours of the month; Generation X; hearts and minds;$64,000 questions; southern discomfort; back to the future; thirty-somethings; windows of opportunity; where's the beef?), usually from a film or television, or perhaps a politician. Others come into use less wittingly, often from social scientists. If you find yourself using any of the following words, you should stop and ask yourself whether (a) it is the best word for the job (b) you would have used it in the same context five or ten years ago, and if not why not:

address (questions can be answered, issues discussed, problems solved, difficulties dealt with)

care for and all caring expressions (how about look after?)

environment (in a writing environment you may want to make use of your Tipp-Ex, rubber or delete button)

famously (usually redundant, nearly always irritating)

focus (all the world's a stage, not a lens)

individual (fine in some contexts, but increasingly used as a longer synonym for man, woman or person)

overseas (increasingly used, and often wrongly, to mean abroad or foreign)

participate in (take part in—more words but fewer syllables)

partner (“Take your partners for the Gay Gordons!” by all means, but dancing together does not necessarily mean sleeping together—just as a sleeping partner is not necessarily a lover)

process (a word properly applied to the Arab-Israeli peace affair, because it was meant to be evolutionary, but now often used in place of talks)

relationship (relations can nearly always do the job)

resources (especially human resources, which may be personnel, staff or just people)

skills (these are turning up all over the place—in learning skills, thinking skills, teaching skills—instead of the ability to. He has the skills probably means He can)

supportive (helpful?)

target (if you are tempted to target your efforts, try to direct them instead)

transparency (openness?)

Such words are not wrong, but if you find yourself using them only because you hear others using them, not because they are the most appropriate ones in the context, you should avoid them. Overused words and off-the-shelf expressions make for stale prose.

Ashok Bhatt, Master of the Art of hitting headlines

2008-03-27T12:12:00.000-07:00

The new Gujarat Assembly has Ashok Bhatt as its Speaker. Bhatt has many distinctions to his credit. He is the MLA representing Khadia constituency in Ahmedabad since 1975, longest surviving MLA in the country. During this period he has witnessed turbulent periods of Gujarat as a society and its politics.
Today when incumbency is a catch phrase in Indian politics, Bhatt's survival as MLA from Khadia is a classic example of his ability to hit right note with his electorate. His personality has another fascinating aspect. However, media and his contemporaries have not been able to do justice to this aspect of his personality. This is his ability to hit headlines at his will and in his way.
It may sound strange when one learns that he his just SSC. He has no qualification in Journalism nor has he undertaken any course in media. He is great in throwing up ideas that catch the attention of the media instantly. PR skills are natural gift to him. He is always willing to help people particularly people from press. But his mastery is much beyond simple PR tricks of exchanging pleasantries and offering help.
It is a know fact that Health, Law and Justice are among those departments which are not sought after by politicians. These are not newsy departments. Nor they are considered important. But Ashok Bhatt has shown that even these dull departments can be turned into happening departments from media point of view.
Malaria is a common health problem. No one thinks beyond quinine tablets. But our Bhattji had processions of monstrous models of mosquitoes to tell people about the villan that caused malaria! This was a good picture event for media. Then there were all kind of information tableau. Once the issue of problem of malaria in the Banaskantha district was raised in the House. He had a very creative explanation. He said flooding of water from the neighbouring Pakistan was the main cause of Malaria in the border district. No one could miss the story, whatsoever may be the fact of the flooding water.
He would have plenty of such occasions. He was probably the first Health Minister who involved UNICEF and had frequent joint media interactions. Promotion of Ayurveda and projects of development of herbal plants brought him fruits in the form of wide media coverage. His tenure as Law and Justice Minister saw news stories of Lok Adalats, evening courts and National Law University in Gujarat!
It is a known fact that Chief Minister Narendra Modi's decision to have him as speaker did not bring cheers to him. But he had to accept the job. Once he accepted it, he started showing his best. He visited the vast library of the Assembly. It had no readers. He sent letters to all MLAs asking them to use the Library. It was a good news copy that MLAs did not use the library. All had this news as prominent one. Next day he wrote a letter to former MLAs asking them to keep relations with the Assembly as the creator of present Gujarat. A creative newsworthy idea! Then he arranged a three day workshop for MLAs. Lok Sabha Speaker was among the important speakers. Certainly a national event.
Even during the budget session, he showed his creative newsiness. What use speakers make of the CCTV. Hardly any. But Ashok Bhatt started viewing tapes of all cameras after Assembly hours. He found some MLAs sharing chocolate , ministers sending notes to MLAs to ask questions. He used this information in the House to act as a good successful monitor!!
At a time, when people curse media for its reporting and charge it with writing all kind of things, here is Ashok Bhatt who sets agenda for media and succeeds in it!!!

Privileged among privileged

2008-03-27T11:12:00.000-07:00

When I visited the Gujarat State Assembly for the first time as a student of Journalism, it was an enviable awe inspiring experience. Assembly sergeants in impeccable white uniform directing strangers and visitors with a command of authority.And when I visited the Assembly to cover proceedings as a reporter of Indian Express, I had another experience of the Assembly.Even the elite, the media- not a popular term in those days, had to stick to rules.

I distinctly remember my first day. While leaving the gallery, I had left my papers on the writing desk. A senior next to me drew my attention to the papers. He asked me to put all my papers in the desk so that nothing flew away from the desk. He explained to me that if papers flew and got into the House, I would be punished. It amounted to throwing papers into the gallery, common form of protest in the Assembly by outsiders.Such was the sense of decorum of the House and spirit of help of fellow journalists.

Now, the atmosphere in the corridors of the Assembly is more or less same. Strict discipline for outsiders and strangers. MLAs, officers in the officers gallery and visitors in the visitors gallery have to follow the strict discipline. Speaker is the ultimate unchallenged undisputed authority for all. Everyone is conscious of the the omnipresent authority of the Speaker. There is an unwritten dress code. Sober colours and formal clothes are still a tradition followed by all.

Last week, Jagdish Thakore of Congress drew the attention of the Speaker to two senior officers of the Information Department sitting in the visitor gallery.There was nothing wrong in the sense that anyone can be in visitors gallery. But the officers slipped out of the gallery the moment the issue was raised.

But the scenario in the press gallery has undergone a sea change. Journalists talk freely at a decibel that is audible even to some members in House. Frequent movement in the gallery attracts attention of everyone in the House. There is a good number of women journalists. In the last session, Sergeant had found a lady journalist giving a note to a sewak in the House from the press gallery. Proceedings were on. He called the lady and warned her . This was one of the several such incidents which showed changing times in the gallery. This week again a lady journalist was seen sending a note through sewak.

Assembly has audio-visual recording of the proceedings. At certain places like office of the Leader of Opposition, Canteen and press room one can see these proceedings live. Earlier this month, newly elected Speaker Ashok Bhatt found a channel showing the scenes which were removed from the record of the proceedings of the House. He sought explanation from the channel. Top brass of the channel was in the Assembly. They tendered an apology. The issue was settled. However, after two days the Speaker issued a circular which pointed out that recording of the proceedings of the House through the network of Close Circuit TV was not allowed and asserted that there should not be any recording.

The problem is that there is a very wide gap between seniors and juniors. It is quite difficult to meet the challenging attitude of juniors who can question anyone about anything. Who can dare tell them about the decorum of the press gallery ! People in the press gallery are privileged among privileged!!

What Friends Say

2008-03-20T11:20:00.000-07:00

--Dear Yogesh,
It is through your media column that I came to know of the death of veteran Kirit Raval.And it would be in the fitness of things if I use the same medium to convey my deepest condolences to a warm hearted human being and a splendid journalist.I was learning to walk in journalism when the ruling crime reporting Czars of Anubhai ,Jaidev,Ambalal kaka and Kirit Raval ruled the roost.Kirit's spirits never sagged and the intake was never able to overshadow his outflow of news.May God bless his soul.
Another point I would like to make here is that our busy schedules , many a times,lead to a situation where we lose track of our own colleagues.I would earnestly request everyone in the fraternity to bond together so that frequent interaction ensures that we do not lose , both touch and track, of our fraternity members and are together to share their happiness and sarrow.Allow the
Media Club to bridge all generational gaps by coming together under it.
warm regards and best wishes.
R.k.misra, founder President Gujarat Media Club
--Dear Yogeshbhai,
Great job done,congrats.
I think,this type of MEDIA was needed since long for media persons in Gujarat.
Keep it up with more and more media masala.
Secondly,I think you should send print out of this newsletter to main 4 media schools,2 at Gujarat University and 2 at Gujarat Vidyapith in Ahmedabad,it will be useful for journalism and communication students.
f posible,try to change layout and presentation of newsletter.As 1,its not eye friendly and 2,you are using more verticle space than horizontal.
tks rgds,
Dhimant Purohit, Aajtak

--Dear Yogesh
It's really a good idea to bring out a specialised newsletter for us - we miss out many important items from the daily newspapers and I will call it a specialised news article service - crisp and to the point - Mind your Language - Be Simple was a good read ! I wish you all the success in this initiative ! Can I add some of my friends to this newsletter ? Is it meant only for a limited audience - or open to all ? Please let me know
Satish Deshpande, British Library
--Dear sharmaji' with this news letter ü have brought the media community closer and will go a long way in building a sense of pride and brotherhood in the media fraternity.

Pankaj Mudholkar, Grey World Wide
Dear shri Yogeshji,
Your endeavour to do some new thing is praiseworthy. congrates.
warm regards,
Arvind Jobanputra, COB UNI Rajkot
--Yogeshbhai
i m very happy to see news about our newsmen, becacuse we are always eager to know what is happening in our media field.ratherthan actual news. i will be more happy when u come with new ideas, because i m confident that u r a proper person who cater these things to our people in a different manner.
keep it up
wish u all the best.
Viren Vyas, Garvi Gujarat.
--Dear Yogeshbhai,
Congrats. I read your second issue with great interest. I am sure that your initiative will go along way in our topical debate on changing role of media. Best wishes for all the time to come.....
Bhagyesh Jha, Commissioner Of Information, Govt Of Gujarat.
--Dear Yogesh bhai,
Just gone through newsletters, you sent. it is a great job. The way you have chosen is really a great, brilliant and exciting.
Please accept my best wishes for this new way of awareness in journalism, and apology for being late. After reading this, I think that why I shouldn't have been gone through before this?
In Gujarat election tour I already experienced your valuable support and information about Gujarat's political scenario. And now enjoying the tips about language and link for Orwell's essay, how one should cover railway with various angle.
It is your privilege to have any help from us, without any hesitation.
Thanks and best wishes again..
AJAY BUWA, Sakal Papers Mumbai
--Yogeshji,
Hearty congratulations...
for this very pioneering venture...media newsloetter
May it succeed in every possible way...
everybody likes the concept of your innovative newslater
warm wishes,
Gautam Purohit,Bereau chief,Gujarat Samachar,Gandhinagar
--Dear YogeshCongrats! A live journalism on modern technology isvery impressive and really give pleasure to read medianews letter.
Bharat Lakhtariya, Gujarat Samachar A'bad.
--Thank you boss. Good stuff. Congrats

RegardsPrashant Pandya,Vice President,Essar Group,Ahmedabad

Silent witness of Gujarat politics for more than two decades

2008-03-20T05:38:00.000-07:00

The block number one of Sachivalaya in Gandhinagar has seen ten Chief Ministers in the last 22 years. There were many more senior bureaucrats attached to the CMO during this period which has seen many turbulent periods of murky politics ranging from struggle for plum portfolios among ministers to the famous Khajuraho episode, the first divide in the monolith of the Bharatiya Janata Party by its own man Shankarsinh Vaghela.
But all along these years, if there is one single person who has been quite close to the hot seat of power that runs the state is Jagadish Thakkar, Public Relations Officer to the Chief Minister. The low profile Thakkar is ubiquitous by his presence as a shadow to the Chief Minister in his all major public functions and mostly available in the CMO when the Chief Minister is in Gandhinagar.
At least for the last four years, I have been trying to find the secret of his survival in such a mercurial environment of the CMO where power politics is the other name of the existence. But, all in vain. Jagdishbhai as everyone calls him will offer tea and snacks, will use all his body language to express intimacy while refraining from the sensitive question. A touch of warmth only to signal that do not touch this subject.
Staff in the CMO calls him Dada. Most of the Chief Ministers have called him Jagdishbhai except Chimabhai Patel and Chhabildas Mehta who called him Jagdish. Something which he relishes when he recounts this fact. Keshubhai Patel used to call him Thakkar as per the tradition of Saurashtra region to which Keshubhai belonged. However, he also started calling him Jagadishbhai when he realized that there was another Thakkar in the staff and it created confusion.
And this is precisely the secret of his success. He sees everything and hears everything, but speaks nothing. Though he sits with journalists in public functions, he seals himself off all that might give wrong signals. With media his job ends with the taking notes of the event for writing of the press release of an event.
After much persuasion I could elicit only this statement from him. "I know the mind of my Chief Minister and I work accordingly. That is my brief". This is what he said when I asked him what makes a good PRO. The PRO must know about the organization and its objective, this is his general advice for becoming a successful PRO.
Jagdishbhai, basically a journalist who started his career with Lok Satta Vadodara in 1967 and later shifted to Saurastra Samachar in Bhavnagar joined the state Information department in 1972 as District Information Officer. From the day one, he has to deal with the crisis management and probably that is the reason that he is able to handle the crisis prone position in the CMO.
His appointment has an interesting tale. Though he had to take charge of Mehsana office, he was asked to report to Bharuch where the office had all kind of problem. There are many places in his list where he was posted to deal with crisis ridden position. And so when the then Director of Information P K Laheri selected him for the post of PRO for the Chief Minister Amarsinh Chaudhary he made a right choice.
He was introduced to the Chief Minister who uttered only one sentence. From tomorrow you will sit here in my office. And since then Jagdishbhai is an integral part of CMO. Though he retired four years back, he is continuing as PRO. In the last 22 years he has rose from the post of Assistant Director of Information to the Additional Director. But people know him only as PRO to the Chief Minister.
He started his career with Amarsinh Chaudhary. He is the first moving PRO. Until he joined, PRO used to sit in the Information Department and his job was more or less to issue CM's messages. And since then he is always on the move with the Chief Minister. He writes press releases of the CM himself. And for the journalists his copy is a great help in the coverage.
And as a good PRO he tells about his boss, the Chief Minister even if the other guest has a better point!
His assignments are a chronicle of the CM office. After Chaudhary, he worked with Madhavsinh Solanki who was reinducted for eight months. Then came Chimanbhai Patel followed by Chhabildas Mehta. His next boss was Keshubhai Patel who was later ousted by Shankarsinh Vaghela. After him came his confidant Dilip Parikh and Suresh Mehta and then after a full turn Keshubhai Patel again. And now Narendra Modi.
His present tenure is until February 2008. He does not plan to retire from the active life. He wants to write. Not the inner stories of the power game, but something social, something that makes people think and talk. He ran a serial on Doordarshan "Aghaat" for one year and now he writes one story a year- in the annual issue of government publication Gujarat.
Though he does not want to talk anything political at least with the journalists, he has a good repository of interesting instances of his life. Here is one that happened during the period of Navnirman agitation when Jagdishbhai was in greens of his career. He was posted in Mehsana on a quite a junior post of DIO.
Law and order situation was turning worse. A mamlatdar suggested that night curfew should be clamped to bring situation under control. But who should bring this suggestion to the notice of the district Collector and the District Superintendent of Police. Jagdishbhai suggested this to the bosses. They promised him to come back to him soon since the night session of the Radio was to close at 11 pm.
Jagdishbhai kept on trying to contact till 10.55 pm. Ultimately, he released a statement in his own name that the curfew is clamped in the Mehsana town. Collector and DSP were surprised, but Jagdishbhai had his explanation of deadline of the Radio. Subsequently orders of curfew were issued and in the morning both the bosses complimented Jagdishbhai for the timely response.
And from those days he knows how the government works.
His personal life is also quite interesting. Till the date he has seen only four films. They are Madhumati, Laajvanti, Mughl-e-Azam and Saara Akash. He is married. His wife used to run a school and also social service organization in Gandhinagar. Later, she opted for the social service only. Though, Jagadishbhai moves round a lot on official assignments, he has never gone out with his family.
Despite all this, he says he is a happy man with happy family. One has to believe him seeing him.

KCK award to Radha of Times !

2008-03-16T10:55:00.000-07:00

This Thursday Times of India and Rajasthan Patrika had carried photo stories about the Karpoor Chandra Kulish Award. Patrika has instituted the Award in the memory of its founder, a great entrepreneur journalist. Patrika report tells that the first international Award has been jointly given to Dawn of Pakistan and India's Hindustan Times . Great for fostering bonehomie among people of India and Pakistan. It mentions what all former President Kalam said about journalism and the big guns of the media present at the function held in Delhi on Wednesday evening. Nothing else about the Award and others who were given the Award.
TOI here had a photograph of Rajasthan Chief Minister with TOI special Correspondent Radha Sharma who was given international merit award. After reading Patrika one wonders what kind of this award is.TOI report tells that another staffer a senior correspondent Prashant Rupera and illustrator Sameer Mahoolkar were also presented certificates at the function for their role in Radha's work. The photo caption ends with TOIs committment for the save girl child for which the Award was given to Radha and others. Poor Radha. Earlier an advertising Agency had claimed the credit of the campaign. The front page story had nothing about the Dawn of Pakistan and India's Hindustan Times and what else happened at the ceremony.
So friends hell with the Cardinal principle of Five W's and H of journalism. Even if it costs one's own brand image. Patrika had news about its own award. It had been trying to publicise it lot for last couple of months.But its report itself did not have much about the persons whom it honoured with the Award. In the case of TOI, there is another interesting chapter. There is no mention of the Award in its own Ahmedabad Mirror.It is supplied as a seperate midloid along with the TOI. Both have many stories with common theme these days. But poor Radha was missing even in her own group's publication.
An insider explained the situation of TOI something like this.At the time of the launch of the Mirror, the management had told the editors and the staff of TOI and Mirror that the two should treat each other as rivals. Do not discuss stories even when you meet, this was the diktat. Whether it is the spirit of rivalry between the two or Mirror missing the Radha story, the fact is that Radha is missing in Mirror. Certainly it must be quite embarrasing for the lady who is being honoured for save the girl child campaign. Certainly, TOI must not have thought of such a shabby treatment to its own girl running its crusade of Save the Girl Child!!!! Or its all just a corporate style Social Responsibility concept of lip service.

On Friday Patrika here had full page supplement about the Award function. It also had photographs of Radha getting award and award to a Saurashtra publication. The full page had photograph of Radha getting award from the Rajasthan Chief Minister.It said Radha of Times getting Award !!!! Who Radha ? Why Radha? God knows!!!!

Mind your language

2008-03-16T10:42:00.000-07:00

Language is a tool of communication.But most of us tend to flaunt our vocabulary as a prized possession. In many cases we go for clumsy sentences, cliche and jargon which make our writings and other content expressions weak. This may sound simple, but this is probably the most difficult task we journalists face. We work against time. We have daily challenge of meeting deadlines. Competition stress drives us to short cuts like cut-paste.

If you want to be understood, if you want your ideas to spread, using effective language must be your top priority.
In the modern world this is hardly ever the case. In many instances, imprecise language is used intentionally to avoid taking a position and offending various demographics. No wonder it’s hard to make sense of anything!
This is not a recent problem, and as George Orwell wrote in his 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, the condition is curable. Try these 5 Rules of Orwell.
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
This sounds easy, but in practice is incredibly difficult. Phrases such as toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, an axe to grind, Achilles’ heel, swan song, and hotbed come to mind quickly and feel comforting and melodic.
For this exact reason they must be avoided. Common phrases have become so comfortable that they create no emotional response. Take the time to invent fresh, powerful images.
What does expressions like inclusive growth or HDI mean. They just mean benefit of development to all. It's so simple.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
Long words don’t make you sound intelligent unless used skillfully. In the wrong situation they’ll have the opposite effect, making you sound pretentious and arrogant. They’re also less likely to be understood and more awkward to read. Faulkner criticised Hemingway for his limited word choice. Hemingway said, Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don’t know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.

3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree. Accordingly, any words that don’t contribute meaning to a passage dilute its power. Less is always better. Always.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
This one is frequently broken, probably because many people don’t know the difference between active and passive . Here is an example that makes it clear:
The man was bitten by the dog. (passive) The dog bit the man. (active).
The active is better because it’s shorter and more forceful.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of its equivalent in your language.
This is tricky because writing now a days can be highly technical. If possible, remain accessible to the average reader. If your audience is highly specialized this is a judgment call. You don’t want to drag on with unnecessary explanation, but try to help people understand what you’re writing about. You want your ideas to spread right?
6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.
This bonus rule is a catch all. Above all, be sure to use common sense.
These rules are easy to memorize but difficult to apply. The key is effort. Good writing matters, probably more than we think.
I hope you find these rules helpful including my bonus rule and through their application we’re able to understand each other a little bit better. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to read Orwell’s original essay. It contains many helpful examples and is, of course, a pleasure to read.

Journalists turn cricketers !

2008-03-16T10:08:00.000-07:00

At the Sprawling Sardar Patel stadium it was one more cricket tournament today. Player after player played his role to his best. Cheer girls continued to cheer both players as well as a small crowd of spectators.

Fours, sixes and outs were cheered by drumbeating. Members of the playing team danced as cheer girls responded to hits and misses on the ground. This is how the members of the Gujarat Media Club had its cricket carnival at the ground.

The players literally toiled, because majority of them were not players in any sense. However, in India given a chance anyone can play cricket and so our friends of the GMC could. It was more to bring together the members and their families around the stumps.

It was a cricket tournament of the journalists, by the journalists and for the journalists. Except handful of outsiders it was purely a journalistic affair right upto spectator. It had a commentator, a practicing doctor. Assisted by some journalists, Dr. Parag Shah did commentary for more than four hours (with more than hour lunch break).

His running commentary was frequently punctuated by his musical interludes when he sang a line or two of old film songs. No doubt the free commentary of Dr. Shah had this untold rider. I will run your show, you lend me yours ears for my songs filled commentary. And he would turn a singer to lift sagging spirits of people on and off the field.

Presence of GCA president Narhari Amin, Hitesh Patel who is known by the name Pochi and Ameesh Saheba, of ICC empires panel gave the event a real cricket look. Defence PRO Satish Menon, Railway PRO Jayant Jitendra were there to add colour to the media event.

There was a guest spectator, Milind Ghatwai of Indian Express presently posted in Bhopal. Ghatwai who is here for the crisis management in the Ahmedabad edition strolled into the stadium to meet old friends. Certainly, a good Sunday for Milind .

At the end of the day, journalists and their families returned home with some kind of satisfaction. Some had known about families of others. Some developed new contacts. For the outgoing team of the GMC office bearers it was a task accomplished, agenda of the tenure finished!

It was a 10 over knock out tournament GMC had organised with the sponsorship of the IOC. There were four teams. The team which lifted the trophy had representatives of Gujarat and Hindi newspapers.

Drunk or sober Kirit Rawal was a great crime reporter

2008-03-13T22:29:00.000-07:00

This Saturday Kirit Rawal died. The man who dominated Crime reporting for more than two decades died working. He collapsed in his chair in Sandesh, the newspaper he served the most. In the later years , he was gradually fading away from the live scene. And if there is anything he is known for is his being wet in dry Gujarat.But it does not make any difference to the fact that he was a great reporter. Here, one of his former colleague and fellow crime reporter Bharat Lakhtariya talks about him and his passion of crime reporting and music.Though Bharat is not active in the field of crime reporting, his image of crime reporter and writer of popular column "crime file se " is the one which evokes his name in the mind of reporters and police both alike. Bharat writes Kirit took his last breath with his pen and paper on the desk of leading newspaper "Sandesh" Ahmedabad. That's the life of a journalist. He was basically a crime reporter and he remained a crime reporter all through his life. He was like a roaring lion in the field of crime journalism and his roars were heard in the police set up for decades.

Good height,broad chest and ever smiling bespectacled face was the identity of late Kirit Raval. His well built physique was probably a gift of his father's akhada in Patan.Kirit was a very good Sitar player. "Zanak, Zanak tore Baze Payalie Aaa,the famous song of film Mere Hoozoor was his favourite at "non crime" gatherings.
He started his career in 70s with Prabhat and Jansatta and worked for a short while with Sambhav and Western Times. But he is known as reporter of Sandesh where he worked for more than two decades. He is still remembered for his reporting of sensational Mangadh killings.

He was one of the famous trio of crime reporters of Gujarat. Other two are Ambalal Patel of Jansatta and Jaidev Patel of Gujarat. Ambalal has withdrawn from the field after his retirement and can be seen in social functions. Jaidev is still very active with his old banner of Gujarat Samachar.
Story of Crime reporting of Gujarat can never be complete without the mention of the name KIRIT RAWAL.

Gujarat Media Club elections: A tame affair

2008-03-13T22:23:00.001-07:00

The first elections of the corporate style Gujarat Media Club does not seem to invoke any interest among its over 100 voting members. Thursday was the last day for filing nominations. The replies of Club's Secretary General Brajesh Singh about nominations are quite philosophical. Brajesh says its voluntary service. People have to spare time from their busy schedule in fixed 24 hours and so on. The fact is that no one is interested in elections.

On the other hand about 40 members are attending net practice for the IOC-GMC Trophy on March 16. Elections for the first elected body are also scheduled for the same day. With State Assembly Session on and examination season already started, the crowd for net practice is impressive. In such a situation, lackluster election is quite surprising. Gujarat has had several journalist bodies in the past, but the Club under the Companies Act is first of its kind.

Founder President of the Club, R K Misra is not going for the second term. For him foundation of the club and spade work for one year is Mission Accomplished. He says that he had been trying to set up a journalists' body for the last four decades or so. It was quite embarrassing to see excellent Clubs in other cities while Gujarat had none.

With this Club Misra says that his dream has come true. In the first year, the Club has corpus of about Rs.10 lakh. It cannot be touched as per the rules. Now the new team has to raise the club further on this foundation, he says. Misra does not see any problem in this. This may take some time, he says.

As the promoter of the Club, Misra has a clear vision and well defined agenda for the new team. First of all we should always be ready for change, he asserts. I am setting up an example by not seeking second term. The agenda of the new team, he says, should be the agenda for growth. It should develop revenue and welfare model for the Club and its members. There should be viable economic activity for women to help create a bond among families of the members.

In the absence of formal nomination, it appears that the new team will be formed through consensus. Let’s see what consensus evolves on March 16 when members meet for the Cricket match and the lunch. Brajesh has confirmed that like last year there would be lunch this year too!

First issue of the newsletter gets readers Bear hug

2008-03-12T18:03:00.000-07:00

The first issue of the newsletter got great response. It was sent to 285 media persons and other, majority of them from Ahmedabad.Till Wednesday evening I got e- mail response from 87 friends. Phones from 13 and accidental greetings from another dozen or so when they stumbled upon me in the State Assembly in Gandhinagar.

Reports of the Newsletter distribution from my service provider has another fantastice story. In all 1700 plus forwards by friends! In this issue I am presenting verbatim some of the responses. Some have made suggestions also. Of these many were quite particular about the colour scheme of the first issue. They found colours eye straining rather than eye catching. Mihir Bholey of NID also drew my attention to space between News and Letter.

Friends, the newsletter has been conceptualized by me for you.It must have you at the center stage. This is precisely I am trying to do. Changes in the format and presentation reflect my commitment. A commitment to make the newsletter a platform for my friends who craft voice and image of others.

Here are the responses of many friends in the form they sent them, unedited & uncensored.

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Dear Yogesh,Please accept my felicitations on the initialisation of this concept.It was sorely needed,is well thought,and highly appreciable.Ideally this is something that the Media Club should have thought about.Good job,well done.My best wishes.

R.K. Misra
Misra is the founder president of the 120 plus member Gujarat Media Club. A veteran of English journalism, Misra does not need any introduction as such.

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Yogesh, Hearty congratulations...You have unleashed your creative
power....Hope this could be used as "Precision Tool" by
Media....Hope in future you will give "High Quality Content" which
will give good "Professional Result"....
God Bless You
All....Dhiren
This is the remark of Dhiren Avashia, who has been associated with media education for long and has many of his young students in the media.

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CONGRATS YOGESHBHAI...for this very pioneering venture...May it succeed in every possible way as you take a stand for information that is AUTHENTIC,TRUE and JUST..
warm wishes,
Fr Prakash
This is how father Prakash views the venture.

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भाई योगेश जी सादर नमस्कार ।
आपका न्यूज लेटर मिला । काफी महत्त्वपूर्ण जानकारियां हैं इसमें । अपने कई मित्रों को भी फारवर्ड कर रहा हूं इसे । मेरे गुजरात दौरे में भी आपसे काफी मदद मिली । सदैव आभारी रहूंगा । गुजरातग्लोबल.काॅम अक्सर खोलता रहता हूं ।
These are the views of Om Prakash Tiwari,Special Correspondent of Dainik Jagran in Mumbai.

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Dear Sharma ,

It is really a great, brilliant and every exciting idea. Only someone like you could think the way you think and work. I know you a workaholic . ...It is good to be one .... I'm sure everybody likes the concept/ idea of your innovative newslater, specially those newsmakers- shakers and movers ( in Gujarati journalism).
I dying to read something about` Bandmaster` and `Khakor` ( breed of journalists) in the newslater.

All the best

basant
Basant Rawat is state Chief of Bureau of Telegraph

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Here is Deepal Trevedie of the Sambhav Group of publications

dear yogeshbhai

was contemplating to write since a couple of days but was out.
read the media news letter. congratulations, its a refreshing change.
i am sure you must be ovtertaken by a flurry of messages and reactions. here , i add mine!
* good stuff! enjoyed reading it.
* the larning zone is really good but i found it a little too long. i think a more crisper version everytime would attract more eye balls.

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Dear Shri. Yogeshbhai,
Thanks for Media News Letter .I congratulate you for this initiative & wish the great sucess . It was much needed as a bridge & wider platform for all media practioners . The word & the world of Media has become very sensitive & complex . we need the viewpoint to understand & interpret it.
Pl. continue its subscription to my inbox .
Thanks again,
meenakshi
Meenakshi is the PRO of the GMDC. She is doing PhD in journalism.

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Dear Mr Yogesh,

Thank you for the mail. I liked your initiative and also the writeup on Wg Cdr Singha. I am sure this initiative of yours will go a long way in binding the journalists here and also bring others come closer to this important state of Gujarat. I wish you all the best.
Wg Cdr Satish Menon.
Satish Menon has joined here as Defence PRO in place of Singha

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Dear Yogesh,

At the outset I contratulate Neha and you for the launch of the Media News Letter, indeed an intitiative borne out of your passion. I also thank you for featuring me in your first issue. It is indeed a great honour for me and I am truly overwhelmed. I suppose it was late last night that you called and I had already hit the sack. But the first thing on waking up that I did was to read your newsletter.

I think it is a magnificent start. I am sure mediapersons also need something like this to circulate among their own and read articles/news other than the routine. I bet contributions will come aplenty. I would be happy to do it myself, rejection slip not withstanding. I would surely pass it around to my friends and media list for others to get to know of the same. I wish the newsletter much popularity and insightful reading.

Thank you once again for being so thoughtful in featuring my tenure here. I cherish each moment spent with each one in the media here in the State. My good wishes remain,

with warm regards and love,

Tarun Kumar Singha
Singha is the first Defence PRO in Gujarat and he has now been transferred to head NCC unit at the BHU.

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Dear Yogeshbhai
Its simply wonderful to have something like this on people like us, who knows almost everything about everyone else but themselves.

I appreciate your efforts and will contribute whenever possible. There is some latest movement in media. If you remember Santosh Chowdhry, who was with IE in Baroda and in Gujarat his last posting was with ET as Rajkot correspondent. Santosh in back in Gujarat. He was with HT Lucknow. He has just joined DNA so still uses his UP cell no here. He can be contacted on 09839539016.
Feel sad about Anubhai. I remember him functioning from a corner desk of Mirzapur office of IE when you were there as Chief Reporter.
Best Wishes
Kamlesh
M:98795 50717
Kamlesh Trivedi is now with Gas-Petro. A veteran in business reporting Kamlesh has worked with number of publications.

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Dear Sir

Thank you so much for the newsletter. It is a beautiful piece of insight into the world of media and its people. Will certainly look forward to upcoming issues.

Warm Regards
Archana
Archana is with Business Standard.

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very nice issue, yogeshbhai. well edited n worded. wonderful contents-particularly 'disastrous reporting of railway disaster' n 'CM in ToI'. thanx. nrb
This is from Nitin Bhatt of Reliance

Great...!!!

Simply great thats the only reaction I can give..

Keep up the good work.....

Regards...

-Soumitra...
NewsWire18
Soumitra Trivedi is the COB of NewsWire18

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Dear Mr Sharma,
I compliment you on your brilliant initiation.......
Great job!!
I convey my heartiest best wishes to you and please do let me know in case I could assist you in any of your further ventures.
Regards
Sanjay Chakraborty
Director:Brand Services
Triton Communications
Ahmedabad
098250-22602

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sharmaji

excellent..i loved the newsletter...and i am sure all others who must have received this, would love it too..once again you have shown that you are a trend setter ..thank you,
hitesh pandya....
Hitesh Pandya is APRO to Chief Minister Narendra Modi

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Yogeshbhai
Thanks you for the newsletter. Will wait for more of it.
This is from Tanvir of Indian Express Ahmedabad

There are many more who have sent their spontaneous response. I have quoted few. Just at random. There are atleast four friends who have made suggestions about the colour scheme of the first issue. Here are they.

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Yogesh,

Very nice and perfectly conceived.But an advice -------------there is no need of using a plethora of goddy colours, cluttering of shades of colour for various items.It can be shown in fonts and sizes of words with bi-colour backdrop to make it more appealing.You can add social stories of neglect and deprivation----all not catching the attention but surfacing visibly in street corners and paltforms etc everywhere.Even women safety and nari shakti issues are going overboard after one glances the crime data and the position of the women in employment, or intheir struggle to earn bread or careers.

sk ( This is S K Nanda IAS )

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My dear Yogesh,
Your Media News Letter is a bold attempt.
However, the letter could do with lighter shades. Fluoroscent colours like deep pink strain the eyes.
And why grudge journos getting fat pay packets? This should have happened long ago. Better late than never.
Regards,
Rajiv Saxena
Rajiv Saxena who has worked with Indian Express for several years is now with Birla group as VP Corporate Communications in Delhi.

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Dear Yogesh Sharmaji,

Received and read your new e-magazine. My
congratulations for this new endeavour! The idea seems
to be quite interesting. It will be useful not only
for the journalists but also for the entire
communication fraternity. Few suggestions; please
write Newsletter as one word and not separately and
avoid using dark colours in the background of the
text. Photograph should be clear to recognize the
face. With the CM it's Bharat Desai I presume. I am
attaching my article recently published on the edit
page of Hindustan. Hope, you'll find it interesting.

Thanks for updating

Mihir Bholey
Mihir looks after Communications in the NID

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Dear Yogesh.
I have gone through the newsletter. It is interesting
and excellent compilation of currents prevailed in
gujarat's journalism. I would like to make little
suggestion about the colour combination of the
newsletter. I Find that fast below and Pink colour is
not impressive. The light colour combination would
have better for reading the contents of newsletter.
Thanks.
Bharat Lakhtariya

Hello Friend where are you

2008-03-12T10:51:00.000-07:00

If you happen to meet a journalist friend in Gujarat after couple of months, please do not ask him how are you? Just ask him where are you. There are all the chances that your friend may give you a new visiting card with new office address. And he would not mind boasting about the hefty pay packet he is getting.

Media scene has changed a lot in the last four years. The arrival of Divya Bhaskar in 2003 and new channels has sent employment Index of media persons here sky rocketing. Whether you know a language or not, you should have either a tag of journalist or a professional qualification. You can easily get five digit salary. It may happen that from the day one you get a chance to saunter in the corridors of power in Gandhinagar.

The upward movement of journalists got great boost with the arrival of Divya Bhaskar. Gujarat Samachar and other leading newspapers got a big jolt because of the exodus. ETV, TV9 and several other channels attracted quite young boys and girls. Three UK based weeklies developed Ahmedabad as their main office.

Recently, Times Launched its midloid Ahmedabad Mirror . It recruited 53 . Naturally all were from Ahmedabad. The management made it clear that knowledge of English is not must. Even if you do not know English, no problem. People who were slogging for Rs.5,000 a month have been recruited for Rs.25,000 a month. Without much knowledge of English. Middle level staff got a package of Rs six lakh plus a year.

This month Business standard launched it Gujarati edition. It recruited more than 20 journalists. Here the situation was different. Reporters were told that knowledge of Gujarati was not must. You can write in English. The management has others to translate in Gujarati. Not a bad idea. Even otherwise management has to have someone to translate English news in Gujarati.

These major developments have chain reaction. There are vacancies in other newspapers. They have to offer higher pay packets to attract staff. Never in the past, professional rivalry and cut throat competition among newspapers and others in media made Journalist the King !

So friend days of Jholawala patrakar are now laid to rest in the history. Now we have laptopwalas with plastic currency .

Do not worry. There are some more publications in the pipeline. So keep on asking where are you friend.

Times of India goes overboard for Modi

2008-03-12T10:49:00.000-07:00

Recently, Modi visited Times office on the Ashram Road in Ahmedabad. The occasion was the first anniversary of the Gujarati Edition of the Economic Times. And Modi had to play the guest editor of Gujarati ET.

Despite his not so good relations with the Times of India journalists , Modi is the most sought after celebrity in the ET Gujarati. In fact, the Gujarati edition was launched by Modi.At that time he had quipped that how strange was the diametrically opposite behaviour of two boys of one group. Probably, it is the business acumen of the business paper ( paper of mahajans in plain Gujarati) to have good relations with the government(Shaashan) !

Modi was to be the guest of the ET only in the building which also has other publications, TOI and newly launched midloid Ahmedabad Mirror. The engagement diary at the Chief Minister's Office had 20-30 minutes for the function. But, Modi visited the office of the TOI also. He stayed in the premises for more than two hours.

Staff here is still reverberating with the visit of Modi. Senior journalist Himanshu Darji is happy that he successfully took the dictation of Modi's edit. A day after even TOI reported how its women staff was all for Modi.There was literal scramble for handshakes and photographs with Modi. The Chief Minister made sure that cameraman included all in the photographs by his remark that see that none is left out otherwise I (Modi) wii have to bear the brunt.

It was certainly a matter of great joy for Modi and his brand builders who are meticulously crafting his macho image ( desi bhaashaa me marad chaap).

What was surprising to all including Modi that Times had another set of photographs of Modi day after the report of his visit. What was the most striking was the photograph of Resident Editor Bharat Desai along with Modi, in quite a pleasant mood. Insiders say, that this made Bharat's phone ringing from the morning. People wanted to know if there was patch up between Bharat and Modi!

It so happened that Bharat was on leave previous day. He had asked his staff to have some photographs of cheerful Modi since earlier photographs had shown Modi in quite a serious mood of editor. Boss not being in the office, the staff had its way and there was Modi and Bharat in cheerful mood.

A senior journalist of TOI quipped that Bharat should have a heavy dose of anti Modi stories to clear the picture.

Wing Commander Singha says good bye to Gujarat

2008-03-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Wing Commander Tarun Kumar Singha is packing up for his new assignment. It is to head the NCC unit at the Benaras Hindu University. In the career of a man in uniform transfers are frequent and interaction with locals is rare. But, in the case of Singha it is a different story. He is the man who has brought defence journalism to Gujarat, the border state. To summarise his over four year stay in Gujarat, he is the man who did a lot to sensitize people and press of Gujarat to the world of Defence.
This chubby faced officer with a broad grin showed best of him as four in one PRO during his stay here.Whether it was his own Indian Air Force or Army, Navy and Coast Guard.Till his appointment as the Defence PRO in Gujarat, the first ever, defence assignments were mostly a privilege of Delhi based journalists. Even during the Kutch earthquake, planeload of Delhi based journalists were flown to Gujarat by the Defence for the reporting of its rescue and relief operation.

It was during these four years that for the first time a contingent of local journalists was flown to the great air fire power show held at Pokharan. Media interaction with the pilots of Mig 21 and their families was a different kind of operation. It was to counter image problem of the aircraft which has got the dubious title of flying coffin.People of Gujarat saw magnificent show of Suryakiran in the Gujarat sky while the renowned Naval Orchestra offered some of its great compositions to the public. Naval band had its first show in Gujarat.

Series of mega recruitment camps gave exposure to the youth of Gujarat to the openings in the defence forces and thus increased the flow of Gujaratis in the defence forces.Certainly these are few among a number of initiatives of Singha.

In the true spirit of a warrior, he built Defence PRO office from a scratch.And made it a hot spot of activities. All from the word go in February 2003. Going out meeting journalists, creating a data base of information about media was a routine affair for several months. Jagadish Patadia of the Press Information Bureau played his adjutant in his assignments. Patadia stood for Defence whether Singha was here or on assignment outside.
An avid documentary maker, he has conceptualized, scripted and coordinated several documentaries on Defence.These include documentaries on Eastern, South Western and Southern Air Commands, Border Roads Organisation, Army Aviation in CI role, Helicopter Operations by IAF in Arunachal Pradesh and the Indian Coast Guard. He is the first ever PRO to have been sent overseas for a specialist PR assignment by the MOD to cover the Indo-UK bilateral air exercise, codenamed 'Indradhanush-07' in June-July 2007. A regular at scripting the commentary for the Republic Day Parade, he headed the PR team that wrote features and press releases of the Military World Games at Hyderabad in October 2007.

Wg Cdr Singha has been awarded commendations by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, South Western Air Command, Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, Commander Coast Guard Region (West); and on 26 Jan 2006, he was awarded the Vishisht Seva Medal for his distinguished service of a high order by the President of India. He is the first PRO outside Delhi circuit to achieve the distinction.

In his own words, the most memorable event of his assignment was the coverage of the historic flight of Dr. APJ Kalam's in Sukhoi-30 MKI on June 8, 2006.

One of his projects was to help lift sagging image of Mig 21 which won adjectives like flying coffin.

News of newsmakers

2008-03-12T10:40:00.000-07:00

This is a blog about those who craft voice and image of people in the society. It is a different thing that rarely we find news about these persons and their profession-media.Even at the time of their death professional rivalry comes in the way. Hardly anyone writes that a media person died.
The profession has its own quote of problems. Lack of learning facility, abscence of inservice training are the basic one.The newsletter is to make up for all this.